


and you play along (because you want to die for love).

by Prettything_uglylie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adoptive Siblings John Murphy & Lexa, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin are Best Friends, Bottom John Murphy (The 100), Clarke Griffin & Wells Jaha Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Heavy Angst, John Murphy & Lexa are Siblings, M/M, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24790924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: When approached by Thelonious Jaha for unsavory reasons, John Murphy becomes one of Clarke Griffin's biggest fears and Bellamy Blake's ...not-so-real boyfriend.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Finn Collins/Wells Jaha, Gina Martin/Raven Reyes, Monty Green/Nathan Miller, Octavia Blake/Lincoln, Thelonious Jaha/John Murphy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 17





	and you play along (because you want to die for love).

**Author's Note:**

> This has some red flags but I hope you enjoy and it will get better!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm confused." Bellamy asks, looking at her with crinkled brows and eyes full of obvious confusion he claimed to have but she can tell by the warm glow present in her eyes that he is not entirely turned off by her proposal, "You want me...to date a guy?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been vaguely talking about this to people both on Twitter and on Tumblr so uh, here it finally is? And I hope you like it! There will be more to come!

> **"** Imagine this:
> 
> You're driving. 
> 
> The sky's bright. You look great. 
> 
> In a word, in a phrase, it's a movie, 
> 
> you're the star. 
> 
> so smile for the camera, it's your big scene, 
> 
> you know your lines. 
> 
> I'm the director. I'm in a helicopter. 
> 
> I have a megaphone and you play along, 
> 
> because you want to die for love, 
> 
> you always have. **"**
> 
> _\- Richard Siken, Planet of Love._

If certain accounts from broken down, biased mouths are to be believed, the problems truly begin on January 28th, 2018. 

From others, they would cite August 12th of 2001 for the beginning of perhaps the worst existence that was known to some and the best to others - John Daniel Murphy is born on August 12th, 2001 to Alex and Krista Murphy, one of whom would die in his lifetime and the other of which he would see to jail. 

At ten years old, the boy known to most as 'Johnny' would fall into a coma, sick with something even doctors couldn't diagnose at first but as the time stretched by, something protective and desperate was awoken in Alexander Murphy. A man driven mad enough to pull his own hair out, Alex makes a drastic decision to steal medicine from a local convenience store but an itchy trigger finger on a first-responding police officer leaves Alex Murphy dead on the concrete from a shot to the chest. 

(John Murphy will grow up hating police, for this and for many other things.) 

After Alex dies and is buried, Krista becomes reliant on the ember bottles around her or anything that can get her drunk enough that she passes out or doesn't feel anything. He had preferred those times though, at the young age of eleven even, as it had meant she would not be yelling or violent with glass bottles thrown at him or punches delivered liberally. 

The incident that finds him moving into the Azgeda youth group home is when one of the neighbors attempts to return a baking tray and hears him begging his mother not to kill him as she whipped his back beyond bloody with a belt. 

He is taken away before the investigation can truly start and ends up at Azgeda where he meets some of the best people he could have ever truly known and his life truly begins to start, aside from the occasional court meetings he still has to have over his mother. 

So under many technicalities, John Murphy's existence has been a miserable one, the trauma endured far too young and becoming hostile from that point on. 

He finds himself waiting for Echo, his eldest adoptive sister, on January 28th, 2018 in the parking lot with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and at seventeen years old, the boy who strictly goes by Murphy now knows the presence he feels over his shoulder is there. 

"Hello?" He asks, not kindly in any form as he spins on his heel and he expects it to be the owner of the car he is leaning on or on of the staff there to scold him for his inappropriate smoking location ("there is a smoker's pit for a reason, John," Abigail Griffin sighs every time he ends up in the nurse's office and he would yell, scream, bitch at her for the use of his first name if he didn't remember photos from his father's high school years with them arm-in-arm, grinning at the camera) but the figure is shrouded by the sheer light the sun casts over him. 

It's too bright and like most would figure, John finds himself squinting and undeterred by Murphy's brashness, the broad figure steps forward. 

Murphy has not been to anything run by the city - unless Azgeda counts but he doesn't think so and he doesn't care to ask - but as Thelonious Jaha takes a step forward out of the blinding light, John Murphy knows who he is. He has seen him at Azgeda, wandering the halls with Nia and a woman in a tight red dress that even when Lexa slaps him for staring, he can't quite look away. 

But the thing is, he's never talked to Jaha, okay? He knows he's a councilor member and like, a big deal who may pay for a lot of their town and might be mayor or something? but he's never talked to him. Even with Wells Jaha sitting a year above him in high school, he has never talked to the man, so when he approaches, it's weird. 

Everything feels weird. 

"John," the man greets and it is all said boy can do to keep from slamming his fist into this man's face - he counts backwards from ten and tries again when he thinks about how fucking rude it is for the sun to stab him in the eyeballs like it's doing. The man is smiling and Murphy scowls, just to prove a point. "How are you doing?" 

_\- 8, 7, 6, 5 -_ he fights the urge to curse the man out before gritting out, "Fine." 

His mind stutters on five and his ocean eyes flick open when he remembers what standing this man holds after thinking about how he had smashed in the window of Connor Michaels' truck and _oh fuck, is that what this is about? Is he going to Juvie now? Jail? Can you be prosecuted as an adult for vehicle damage?_

He tries his best to be nice, "You?" 

It's a shitty attempt. 

"I'm doing wonderfully," the way Jaha talks slow but sure, like he's shooting the breeze and there's all the time in the world reminds John of slow walkers and he finds himself counting again. Jaha continues in his languid tone, "It's a beautiful day out. Sun shining, birds - " 

"What do you want?" He's not good at being nice. Sometimes he tries but his voice comes out as acid and his nailbeds stay lodged into his palms for hours afterward. He doesn't even have time to backtrack the growl because Jaha is looking at him and then his nod is considerate, validating in a weird way, 

"I had little patience for the world when I was your age too, John. I learned from that, the world will give you time if you let it." Murphy has to dig his teeth into his tongue not to ask how long an old man like him has, but Jaha does not seem to sense this, "I admire your brashness though - it's a beautiful thing to be unapologetic about who you are." 

That's - not what it is. He just got sick of apologizing and no one listened anyway so no one was there to notice when a boy beaten into submission first began to fight back. 

Jaha looks at him and for a moment, Murphy can feel his gaze penetrating him but it isn't the reassuring lust-filled gaze some boys will leave him with at house parties as though they are already mentally stripping the clothes from his body. His gaze is tender and assessing, only focused on John's face as a smile pulls at his lips a little. He isn't stripping him of his clothes mentally but John still feels naked. 

Murphy wishes he would look at him like sleazy old men in crowded malls do, or drunk fratboys or that man who had grabbed his thigh in the movie theatre for The Death Cure had. 

The gaze Jaha has on him feels _worse_ \- like he actually cares about Murphy. 

His smile is present in his lavish tone, "Are you unapologetic in all ways, John?" Murphy feels his eyebrows raise and he is about to start yelling when Jaha glances away from him to stare at the sun and absentmindedly offers, "Fifteen thousand a month, John. Consider it."

He sits there confused for a moment before finally understanding but when that hits, Jaha is already walking away from him. 

As though the universe had delayed her until this very moment so as to allow the conversation to happen, Echo pulls up in her car. The car, he would guess to describe it, is a small grey thing that looks like the ride Regina George has in Mean Girls but John Murphy also knows very little about cars so he would not be held to it but he does not have to know the make to know the significance it holds for Echo - a way in which something is her own, a bit of freedom. She calls it Bow and he wonders if she still practices archery. 

"Murphy." She greets and he gets in carefully, slamming the door a bit too harshly because he is confused and broken and doesn't know how to love anything properly. 

They are only sitting at their first traffic light when she breaks and with a sigh, demands his attention to ask, "What's wrong with you?" 

It isn't nice but he isn't either and they find some sort of solidarity in not quite wanting sweet kindness when they're upset. Besides, Echo is a problem-solver to his moping-upset breed and she knows how to cope with life better than anyone he's met before. 

"I think someone just offered to be my sugar daddy." 

The blinker is loud in the quiet car for too many moments. 

"Oh shit." She murmurs and he nods, agreeing with the sentiment entirely,

"Oh shit." 

* * *

Despite her upbringing and her so-far simplistic life, Clarke Griffin does not consider herself sheltered. Her mother may have pulled in the reins significantly after her father Jake's unfortunate death last year, asking her to call her if she will not be home on schedule and to text her about what is going on and who she is with every few hours, but it brings a certain annoyance to Clarke's day. 

She understood where her mother was coming from, to have a good man like Jake Griffin suddenly die had been a tragedy and had devasted the town of Arkadia for a good full day after the news that he had been killed in a collision with a drunk driver was released. But Clarke does not need a chaperone or a babysitter, by any means. 

It's the 4th of February when she enters the school to see it in progress. There are yelling patrons and a good bit of chanting encouragement for a fight from the crowd that had gathered around them and while she would typically roll her eyes and wander off, she hears someone scream, "Think Murphy's got him!" 

It sets alarm bells off inside of her head. As notorious as problem student and all-around dick, John Murphy is, he's become less known to pick fights with her best friend since childhood, Wells Jaha, since the winter snow began to fade - which he used to do frequently especially because Wells, the man of honor that he has taken from his father, won't let him torment any of their friends. 

But Murphy has backed off. She is grateful for this fact, she truly is, because she assumes that if she sees Murphy go after Wells or Finn again, one of the boys will give him a punch square to the face. 

Murphy, she knows, is stupid to be afraid of, and she would not classify her feelings towards the younger student as fear but a cocktail of negative emotions all landing around _let's not fuck with the budding sociopath_ and _oh god, just leave us alone,_ she believes it may best be described as such. When Murphy has also made himself somewhat feared for crashing the windshield of Connor Michaels' truck late the previous month as he slept, only avoiding disciplinary action because they could not prove he had done it, but Clarke is worried for another reason. 

Whatever sort of fight Murphy has gotten himself into, has partaken near Wells' locker. 

She pushes her way through the crowd, accidentally elbowing her acquaintance Sterling in the ribs to which she immediately utters, "Sorry." 

"It's fine." He assures, smiling at her warmly and Clarke finds a smile on her own lips at his mere presence - he is one of those people who so unquestioningly is full of light and easy to talk to, before they had even really started talking but after her father had died, he had let her borrow all of his notes and helped her on one of her English projects. 

Her temperance is good when she sees Murphy straddle-punching Wells, is her point. 

"Jesus Christ!" She yelps, unsure if it even truly comes from her vocal cords and before she can think it through with only Wells' safety in mind, she begins to pull at Murphy. She fists her hands into the fabric of his jacket and manages to catch him under the armpits, pulling him a bit unsteady and then she feels another pair of hands help tug him off of Wells, uncaring of who they belong to as long as it helps. 

"Fight's over, man." A gruff voice shakes with effort and she automatically places it as Finn without even looking at him but Murphy continues to struggle and she is glad he leans more into Finn as he throws himself back into them, causing Finn to grab Murphy and continue to drag the scrawny boy while Clarke leans down to check Wells for injuries. 

He looks dazed and is bleeding a bit with minor swelling but nothing looks broken and his eyes are still firm, voice sure when he goes on to spit, "Murphy, you son of a bitch." 

It seems to gear the younger boy though and as she supports her friend's head with her hand and her heart flutters in worry about him, she sees how Finn is straining to hold him back. 

He looks like an angry dog, she considers, pulling and straining in Finn's arm like that and while sometimes, Murphy is just fallen cigarette ash and broken jokes, in moments like this he is dangerous and laden in fire. He is the boy who smashed in Connor's windows for groping his friend Emori or the reckless son of a bitch who apparently lit up a part of the police station or who pulled a knife on a kid once. 

Like this, Murphy feels dangerous and the excited chatter of the crowd dies down but the younger boy doesn't seem to be attempting to appease the crowd, she notes as he continues to struggle and curse. 

Then Murphy stops. The tension falls from the room and where relief should exist, it does not. 

His eyes are not lit with an angry fire but rather dead and his smirk is malicious, "Sure my mother was a drunk but your dad pays me 15k just to suck his dick." 

Then, as though ending everything happening, his smirk widens and pushing back on Finn, he turns on his heel and walks off. People stare after him but no one follows him and not for the first time, Clarke wonders if Murphy truly has friends - she's seen him hang around Emori and his foster siblings but she doesn't know if he's ever truly had friends, not when she's fairly certain that he and Emori have slept together a handful of times. 

The threat lingers though and Wells sends her a confused and helpless look. 

She doesn't get it either. 

* * *

After a day full of Finn worrying over him and talking about precautions they could take, Wells had seemed to grow tired of the entire situation. While he had very obviously appreciated his boyfriend's presence, it was clear that Wells was growing tired of people asking about the injuries or poking at him experimentally just to make sure he was okay to the point where he fell asleep in the car on the ride home. 

Clarke is simply grateful that she was driving this time. 

But with the wear of the day looming over him, she did not expect him to call her as the night approaches the morning hours, passing over the ebb of 1:15 am and she had been staring at the ceiling in a hope to fall asleep. 

The screen lights up, revealing a photo of her and Wells around fourteen years old sitting in a tree that they climbed and the photo had been taken the same day that Wells had followed by falling out of the tree and breaking his arm, and she pulls up the phone. 

"Hi," she murmurs as the feeling of trepidation sinks into her gut and she knows this can't be very good. The last time that Wells had called her this late at night had been when he had spent years struggling with his feelings for Finn before he had admitted to her that he had feelings for Finn, which she had already known but had comforted him properly. 

His voice is a broken sob, one that comes through the speakerphone and wires into her head and her heart and makes her hand shake against her ear, "He was right." 

She cares so deeply for Wells. Despite having met through their parents who work together, she had grown up with the slightly older boy and he had become something of the brother she never had. She just wants to take care of him and that feeling lurches in her chest and makes her heart desperate. 

"What are you talking about, Wells?" She aims for steady but Clarke can hear the shake in her own voice caused by the edges of sleep she was near when he called. 

He takes a deep breath in and Clarke is proud of him but then he affirms, wheezing only slightly, "Murphy was right. I confronted my dad and he...he just _admitted_ to it, Clarke." 

_Oh, God._

Somewhere between calming him through his panic attack as Wells sobs into the phone and worries over his father paying too much money to fuck a minor and staring at her ceiling fan as it spins, Clarke Griffin devises a plan. 

* * *

The next day, Clarke Griffin approaches her group of friends at the lunch table with a clarity she can only have when sure of herself. She is not stopped by the hustle and bustle of the crowd or the loud conversations taking place around them but she is sure in her strides and in her ideas, only needing a bit of help in elbow grease and ideas from her friends around her. 

Setting the tray on the table before them, the blonde sits on one of the benches before scanning. She is grateful for the lacking presence of Finn and Wells, knowing how they would both protest to the idea but Bellamy is also absent - a moment flicks through her head before she decides that is a good thing, but worry still licks at her. 

She asks gently, "Where are our missing comrades?" 

Raven Reyes snorts, derisive and witty as ever but glances up from where she had been fiddling with her brace, "Wells and Finn are probably fucking in a janitor's closet." 

Though her answer is crass and Clarke thinks of the likelihood that they are doing this but knows how nervous Wells gets at the idea of holding Finn's hand, Monty Green fixes up the statement. 

"Wells was talking about one of our lessons and Finn dragged them off to a closet where they are likely making out," he answers from his perch on his boyfriend Nathan Miller's lap, not looking up from his chemistry textbook but his eyes flick up for a moment to look at Raven and shrug, "They may be fucking." 

Nathan Miller laughs and for a moment, she admires them - Monty for his apathetic but not rude mannerisms and Miller for his easy comradery but how the both of them feel warm and the love being obvious and tangible between them. 

As she considers how nice it would be to be properly in love, Monty continues to appeal to her personal need of knowing where everyone is by listing them off, "Jasper is talking to Pike, Bellamy is home sick with Octavia," he continues to read but his head turns towards Clarke to look her in the eyes and firmly say, "and Harper is studying with Lincon for our chem test in approximately," he checks a watch that is not on the arm of his hoodie, "46 minutes...So, yeah." 

While basking in how grateful she is for Monty and his antics for a moment, Clarke considers the boy properly. Monty is smart, probably smarter than everyone off of maybe Raven, and he's kind but doesn't allow people to walk all over him - he is the first guy that she has ever known to call Pike out for being a dick after, ten minutes prior, having run into their desk and apologized to that. He's so important to her so she offers him the silence he seems to need to study over so she flips to the other side of the table, directly beside Raven. 

"Thanks." He gives her a minute nod and he and Miller begin to murmur to each other, moments obviously separated and likely beginning to study - she thinks to ask why he chose to study in the cafeteria with them when Harper and Lincoln are working in the library but Monty is smart and knows what he's doing, she had learned to stop questioning him. 

Raven Reyes is smart too, brilliant and thinking best on her feet, known for innovation and shining moments of knowing best. She can come up with a plan from absolutely nothing and make it the most brilliant thing to ever happen. She trusts her with this, "Can I get your advice on something?" 

Raven raises one of her perfect brows before nodding a single time and reaching to pull at the edges of her Neilson chocolate milk carton before answering, "Yeah." 

Clarke nods before considering how to word it as she watches the way the mechanic's hands pull at the white divides of the carton, pulling and tearing the paper improperly. The other girl's fingernails are short, painted dark ebony and worn from her work on cars but they're nice hands, ones that Clarke has thought about gripping her sheets and touching herself but never pursued anything. She only likes Raven as a friend but watching the tendons come through her hands and wrists, she fully acknowledges that she has a bit of lust for her.

The paper splits wrong and leaves the bubble of air in her attempt to open it, was swollen. The girl swears quietly, "Fuck..." 

She glances at Clarke and spins it towards her in an unspoken ask for help, which Clarke accepts, turning it to the other end and peeling back the two folds before starting, "I found out something about Murphy. He's, uh, sleeping with Wells' father for money." 

"Holy fuck!" Raven curses and Clarke glances up from her task to gauge her reaction, noting the raised eyebrows and genuine look of surprise before looking back to the reassuring folds of the milk carton, "Yeah." 

"We can't have that though," She starts and Raven's agreement is loud when she says, 

"Yeah. Isn't Murphy a minor?" The blonde nods, still focused on how best to do it without botching another part of the seal, "So, prostitution of a minor? That's great for him... Sort of a sugar daddy situation for Murphy though." 

She agrees and cannot believe that Murphy has taken something like sex and turned it into a transaction let alone, one with an older classmate's father? SHe doesn't get what's going through his head. 

"We really can't have that." 

"Get him a boyfriend," Raven cracks and though it had meant to be light and airy, Clarke nods - having decided that point the previous night on the phone with Wells - before she asks Raven, curious and all-knowing as Raven is, she tends to notice things first. 

Her voice is gentle, "Do you know if anyone actually likes Murphy though?" 

The fold comes apart perfectly and the swimming brown liquid is revealed properly which makes Raven let out a small cheering noise and pull the carton from her hands with grateful eyes. 

She takes a pull with a satisfied sigh and not for the first time, Clarke remembers her first interaction with Raven had been at fourteen years old when the cafeteria's fridge had broke, causing the milk to go bad and Raven happened to look at the blonde behind her in line and said, "I'm about to commit neck-rope." 

They've been friends for four years now and whenever she needs to sweet-talk Raven, the brunette can expect a carton of Neilson's chocolate milk coming her way. 

It makes her smile fondly and Raven shrugs, eyes still alit with the joy of having her milk freed from the evilness of its paper confines, "No. But he's had a crush on Bellamy for like, ever." 

Clarke's eyes widen and she asks, in shock at how easy that is, "Are you serious?" 

"Yeah." Raven shrugs before nudging Clarke with the noncrippled leg and saying, "Thanks." 

_No, Raven, thank you._

* * *

"I'm confused." Bellamy asks, looking at her with crinkled brows and eyes full of obvious confusion he claimed to have but she can tell by the warm glow present in her eyes that he is not entirely turned off by her proposal, "You want me...to date a guy?" 

"Murphy," She repeats herself and his head tilts as though to speak or doubting her again but she holds up a hand and continues, "I'm asking you to date Murphy to keep him out of Jaha's wallet and bed." 

Bellamy mutters something she thinks she would make out to be 'creep' and she does not fully blame him. She does consider that it is a bit bizarre that Jaha would sink his sights on Murphy and decide that was the best person to pour his money into considering his fact of being underage, known to act out and be, frankly, a dick and the fact that she hadn't even known Jaha knew who Murphy was. 

Bellamy levels her a concerned look, still not fully intrigued or even truly buying it, "Isn't Murphy that psycho bitch that fucked up Connor's car?" 

He glances over his shoulder after cussing like that, something Clarke considers both ridiculous since he knows Octavia is in bed sick and adorable by the way he is still afraid to swear in front of his sister at his age of 18 and hers of 16. 

She nods, attempting to look dutiful but can hear him coming around already, "You wouldn't be in any danger," She ignores Bellamy's scoff here with a skill composed of knowing him for years and being best friends with him and his sister since she was 10, "and there would be benefits." 

"Benefits?" He echoes, looking smug now and his eyebrow raises along with his lip into a smirk, which she hates - _it makes you look like a fuckboy,_ she had complained once and he had laughed but continued to do it - and he asks, "What kind of benefits?" 

"You date Murphy for a bit. Until he's legal, or away from Jaha enough." At Bellamy's nod, she pauses. She is aware of the Blakes' situation, knowing why the second Bellamy was legally old enough, he had moved him and Octavia out of Aurora Blake's home and into their own flat, which he works two jobs to afford. So, she knows about Bellamy's financial difficulties and she doesn't like to manipulate him through them but given her allowance and her worry for Wells, she speaks without thinking it all through, "I pay $60 a day." 

His eyebrows raise in surprise and smirk falls into a soft 'o' of surprise but he leans up from the dinner table they're at and his posture straightens out. Intrigue is bright in his eyes and he asks, 

"What do I have to do?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prayer circle that my best boy Murphy doesn't die tonight!
> 
> also, i hope you liked this! kudos and comments are my everything!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like! There will be more to come!


End file.
